I was looking at the other people in line while waiting to pay in a store and noticed a face with bright make-up. The next time I looked in that direction I saw shiny high-heeled boots. The woman was Russian, as later confirmed by her accent. She was with her American husband and son. It looked like they were out doing family shopping. I immediate remembered the movie "Birthday Girl," about mail-order brides from Russia because I had recently seen it. So I tried to guess at the relationship of the couple I was watching. I could relate to both of them. The woman was very warm and smiling. She loved this man and surrounded him with gentleness. The man looked like any other man that had just spent a couple hours in the store with his family. But he tried to smile back and get involved in a conversation. Yet there seemed to be a thin wall between them.
As they moved through the items displayed along the cash registers, something grabbed the boy's attention and he commented on it. The man asked what he said, and the boy's quick response was "Nothing." The woman asker her husband what was going on. "I asked him what he said, and he said 'Nothing,'" he answered. It felt like this wasn't his son. The woman explained, "He's talking to himself again."
I saw them again as they were walking out of the store. The woman looked strange shopping in this small town in heels and a fancy coat. I remembered when I dressed up for basic daily activities, trying to fit into the society that I came from. I wondered if this woman is happy here. If she felt like she fit in. If she felt like her life fit in here. And the man, does he understand his wife? Is he happy with a beautiful foreign wife?
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